The present invention relates to disposable garments. Examples of such disposable garments include disposable underwear, disposable diapers including pull-on diapers and training pants, and disposable panties for menstrual use. More specifically, the present invention relates to disposable garments having enhanced extensibility around leg openings.
Infants and other incontinent individuals wear disposable garments such as diapers to receive and contain urine and other body exudes. Pull-on garments having fixed sides (e.g., training pants or pull-on diapers) have become popular. In order to contain body exudates as well as to fit a wide variety of body shapes and sizes, these garments must fit snugly about the waist and legs of the wearer without drooping, sagging or sliding down from its position on the torso as well as fitting larger wearers without causing irritation to the skin due to the product being too tight.
Many types of pull-on garments use conventional elastic elements secured in an elastically contractible condition in the waist and leg openings. For example, pull-on garments known as xe2x80x9cballoon typexe2x80x9d pants are contracted by elasticized bands in specific zones of the product while the remaining material tends to blouse. Examples of such pull-on garments are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,171,239 published on Dec. 15, 1992, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,610,681 published on Sep. 9, 1986. These garments will fit a range of waist and leg sizes due to the fact that the contractive elastic openings will expand to accommodate various size wearers. Nonetheless, the range of sizes is limited because the elastic elements, which enable this variation in size, have a limited degree of stretch. The narrow elastic bands used in the waist opening and the leg openings also tend to concentrate the fit forces in a narrow zone of the wearer""s body leading to increased incidence of skin marking of the wearer.
Another type of pull-on garment employs side panels. Examples of such garments are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,940,464 published on Jul. 10, 1990, U.S. Pat. No. 5,246,433 published on Sep. 21, 1993, U.S. Pat. No. 5,545,158 published on Aug. 13, 1996, U.S. Pat. No. 5,591,155 published on Jan. 7, 1997 and EP publication 0 526 868 A1 published on Feb. 10, 1993. Such garments have side panels which extend laterally outwardly in a front region of the garments and the back region of the garments. The side panel has an inner side edge and an outer side edge, both of which are parallel to each other and parallel to the longitudinal center line of the garment. The garments also have seams to join the outer side edges of the side panels to form one waist opening and two leg openings. Since the outer side edges are parallel to each other and parallel to the longitudinal center line of the garments, each side elastic incorporated in the side panel has the same width in the lateral direction or the same available elastic material quantity on the side panel between the waist opening and the leg openings. Therefore, these garments do not have a high degree of extensibility around the leg openings, but have only a uniform degree of extensibility between the waist opening and the leg openings. Therefore, if the garment fits the wearer well around the waist opening and provides a sustained fit around the waist opening, the wearer may feel tightness around the leg openings thereby causing an incidence of skin marking of the wearer.
Another example of pull-on garments having side panels is disclosed in EP publication 0 547 497 A2 published on Jun. 23, 1993. The garment disclosed therein has side panels having a triangular shaped side elastic which has a decreased width adjacent to the waist opening. This garment has different available elastic material from the leg openings toward the waist opening by reducing the amount of elastic material in that direction. Due to the geometry of the triangular shaped side elastic, the garment has portions of significantly reduced extensibility at the sides of the garment between the leg openings and the waist opening, reducing ease of application and increasing pressure at a portion of the side panel potentially reducing the fit range.
Thus, none of the existing art provides all of the advantages and benefits of the present invention.
The present invention is directed to a disposable garment. The disposable garment has a front region, a back region and a crotch region between the front region and the back region. The disposable garment comprises a chassis and seams. The chassis comprises a topsheet, a backsheet joined with the topsheet, and an absorbent core interposed between the topsheet and the backsheet. The chassis has a central panel having side edges and a waist edge, and an ear panel extending laterally outwardly from each side edge of the central panel in the front region and the back region. The ear panel is rendered extensible to form an extensible ear. The extensible ear has a higher end edge, a lower end edge, an inner side edge, and an outer side edge. The outer side edge is non-parallel to the inner side edge, and is non-parallel to a longitudinal center line of the garment, and projects laterally outwardly proximate the lower end edge. A lateral width of the extensible ear between the inner side edge and the outer side edge is greater proximate the lower end edge than proximate the higher end edge. The seams join each ear panel along the outer side edge to a corresponding portion in the opposite region of the disposable garment so as to form one waist opening and two leg openings. The seam is non-parallel to the longitudinal canter line.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become evident to those skilled in the art from a reading of the present disclosure.